Suicide Note
by The Drowned World
Summary: Angel always hurts the pretty ones with wounded, dark eyes the most...An extremely dark look at Angel's decision to leave Sunnydale during season three, and his thoughts on three victims to his allure: Faith, Drusilla, and Xander. Angst, Darkfic. Oneshot


**A/N:** I'm back, briefly – again with apologies for my other, longer stories: this has been a horrendously hard year, and I'm not trying to keep myself to a particular schedule in terms of writing because I just need to be able to do what I want in my fictional worlds for awhile. Since I am, at the moment, contemplating the darker side of Angelus in my other story _the Passion of Angels and Demons_, I got to thinking about the marvelously thin line between Angel and Angelus during the epic second season of _Angel_, and this is what came of it.

**WARNINGS:** This is an _extremely_ dark story, ridden with angst. I've labeled it as an **M** story because it features somewhat explicit (and semi-nonconsensual) sex. The sex is also violent, unloving, and generally laced with bloodplay and slight D/s elements, as well. Also, this pairs Angel with Drusilla, Faith and Xander, and mentions Darla, Buffy and Spike, so be warned that it features both straight and gay sex.

This will be a one-shot, as I think that it pretty much accomplishes what it was meant to within the constraints of a single story. This is a bit of a departure for me, because usually when I write Angel rather than Angelus as a character, Angel is firmly on the side of good. However, as I stated above, this story is sort of a homage to the second season of _Angel_ and to how well they pulled off Angel going dark without losing his soul, and how complex that issue was.

_Please, please pay attention to the warnings! **NOTE: This story takes place during the third season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," some vague time after "Enemies" and directly before "The Prom."**_

So, with all of that out of the way:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

_Suicide Note_

_In our mutual_

_Shame, we idolize_

_To blind them from the truth_

_That finds a way from who we are_

_._

_Can't wash it all away_

_Can't wish it all away_

_Can't cry it all away_

_Can't scratch it all away..._

—From "Understanding" by Evanescence (_Sound Asleep EP_)

_**Sunnydale, California: 1999**_

Angel can't stop staring at her.

He is perfectly still, not even the motions of breath within his chest. Human beings would be put at ease by the appearance of a breathing creature, because even that slight movement indicates something _alive_, something understandable. Angel is not striving to appear human in this moment, a farce he struggles with night after night on the long and bloody road to redemption that he has chosen. The predator prowling constantly beneath the crushing weight of his soul is alive within him, howling for things that Angel knows he should not want, but can't stop fantasizing about anyway.

She stares right back at him, her dark eyes burning with fury and something else, something dangerous, a wildness that he himself has tasted at the edge of complete loss of control. She is fearless and feral, a stalking lioness on the hunt for prey.

In response to the thought, he finds himself drawing closer, against his will, to loom over her. His height and his strength is superior to hers, and he uses his easy aura of power to dominate her, until she furiously drops her eyes. The flash of submission is all that he needs to let a growl rumble from the recesses of his chest, and she shivers slightly at the sound.

This should not be happening, but it is. And he is doing nothing to stop it.

"Are you gonna give me an answer?" she asks, her stance challenging. She's already sure of him, of course, because they both know what is about to happen. So very wrong, of course. But by not outright rejecting this, he has already given her his complicit agreement. And he is tired, so very, very tired, of trying to fight back the memories, the guilt, the condemnation and the hesitation in Buffy's eyes when she looks at him and tries to see the man that she'd thought he was.

"Get on your knees," Angel whispers, and closes his eyes to the satisfying sensual curl of Faith's full lips as she slowly kneels in front of him. So very wrong, but her dark eyes are not unlike those that he has seen before. It is the ones with dark, submissive eyes that he has always hurt the most...

_**London, England: 1864**_

Angelus has never had a hunt quite this perfect, and the high is even greater than an orgasm as he watches the final shattering of the young girl's soul in the flickering of the flames. That she had foreseen this ending as soon as she had spurned his first offer to take her only made his victory sweeter, and he reveled in her screams as her childhood home burned to nothing but ashes, the body of her maid and thus her final caretaker inside, withering away to nothing in the intense heat.

Darla's eyes are on him as he slowly stalks toward the girl quivering in a heap on the ground, and the thrill of her voyeuristic pleasure at his sadistic indulgences hardens his cock in his pants. The demon within him aches to free itself from the constraints of hiding behind his human visage, but he has long since mastered his baser urges, and he instead wears the face of human beauty that gave him his name as he kneels down next to the girl who starts and shies away from him like a skittish horse.

"Shh, dear girl," he whispers soothingly. "Drusilla, come to daddy." It's so wickedly, deliciously _wrong_ the way that the poor, confused girl climbs into his lap and buries her secret tears in the crook of his neck. She has seen so many sides of his personality over the course of his seductive torture – rage, cruelty, sincerity, passion, sadism, empathy, love, hate – that she is breaking inside like a kaleidoscope, her world shattering away into meaningless words and images. Soon she will be completely mad, and she'll be unable to tell the difference from her visions and the real world.

"Why?" she cries into his neck, and he smiles as satisfied as a cat with cream as he strokes soothing hands down the length of her back. She is wearing nothing but a silky white nightgown, and it would be so easy to cup her pretty little breasts in his big hands, but he does not. Instead, he murmurs soothing words into her dark hair, all wrung through with ash from her home.

"Because you said no, my sweet. Don't you remember? You're the devil's daughter, baby girl. I don't like it when you tell me 'no.'" She stiffens and whines and whimpers in his lap, but he won't let her go. The wriggling of her hips are providing unconscious strokes to his inflamed cock, and he smirks as she tries to get away from him as he whispers poison in his ear. "They're all dead and gone now, Drusilla, and you'll have to come back to Hell with me – but don't worry. Daddy loves his baby girl. I'll treat you so _very_ well..."

"No!" she sobs, but he just holds her tighter. His cock stiffens even harder from being denied pleasure as Darla drifts closer and the scent of his sire reaches his nostrils. She smells of blood and sex and evil, and it smells like home. Drusilla has also caught sight of her, a beautiful, remote blonde woman watching the destruction of her entire life. "Help me, please, help me," she whimpers. She is so beautiful broken, a true masterpiece, that all Angelus can do is marvel at his own magnificence as Darla's cold blue eyes meet his beautiful face and her lips curve upward in a regal smile. She shakes her head, and Drusilla flinches back in horror.

"You see, my love? Even the angels reject you. There's nothing left for you but me," Angelus tells her, and he at last allows his true face to ripple into being. Drusilla draws back in shock, but when she puts room between them, he thrusts his hips up, allowing her to feel his hard need. The girl, a product of repressive Victorian society, doesn't know how to react but cries even harder. Angelus leans forward and laps at her tears with his feline-rough tongue, savoring their salt as his fingers undo her gown so that he can caress her bare skin. She shivers in horrified desire, and he smiles sadistically as he lightly strokes the folds of her sweet core.

Drusilla has never experienced anything like this, and submits to his humiliating touches like a child without understanding as his knowing fingers roughly pinch her sweet bump, savoring the juices now flowing heavily between her leg. He sinks his middle finger deeply inside of her, savoring her squeal of pleasure and pain. He can feel the barrier of her virginity, which he leaves intact – his little girl will be pure after tonight. She still has not earned his final punishment yet.

Instead, Drusilla rides his finger like a shameless slut, her writhing movements on his lap teasing and tormenting his cock, but he will not give in to his desire; this is about Drusilla and she must be made to taste the full extent of his torment. When she reaches orgasm, he thrusts two fingers into her deeply, soaking them in her juices. These fingers he curiously tastes, moaning at the heady feelings of despair they carry with him. So expressive, his baby girl. He wipes his still-moist fingers across her lips.

"Now you've given yourself to Satan, child – the ashes of Hell itself have consumed all you care about, witch. Don't worry, baby; daddy will see you in Hell." She collapses in a faint, her face frozen in agony, and he chuckles as he watches her childhood crumble into ashes. Soon there will be humans coming, to see Drusilla collapsed outside her home, and they will take her to the church that she still wants to believe will save her. Oh, the next stage would be such fun...

"You've truly outdone yourself this time, my Angel," Darla says as they walk away into the warm spring night. "And such self control you've learned, not to drink from her, or to use her in front of me..." Darla sounds jealous, and kittenish. She is in a mood to play. Angelus grins at her fiercely, and she strikes him across the face hard enough to break the skin. It adds a thrill that burns from his stricken face to his hard groin. "I'm not done with you yet," Darla says. She kneels next to him on the ground and draws a silk tie from her long, blonde hair.

She unclasps his pants and his large, achingly hard cock springs free. Angelus knows better than to show his relief; Darla is a cruel taskmaster and he cannot achieve his pleasure until she allows it. She nods in approval at him before tying the silk firmly around the base of his cock, a tie that he knows from long experience will not allow him to orgasm for hours as she has her fun.

"Now, fix yourself up and come along – there was a delicious little stable boy that I saw on our way to the hotel, and he looks to be just your type." Darla walks out from the trees sedately, and Angelus takes her distraction as an opportunity to lightly stroke up the length of his cock, licking his lips at the thought of the filthy things that Darla would do to him and this young lad. Letting his fingers brush past his hard nipples as they drift down to tuck himself back into his pants, Angelus spares one last look back at the burning home of the sweet girl he'd soon take for his own, before he hurries to catch up to his sire as she leads him toward town.

_**Sunnydale, California: 1999**_

The first thing that Faith does is release Angel's throbbing cock from the constraints of his black slacks. Slayers run a standard temperature higher than most humans, and the heat of her small, calloused hand on his cock sends shivers down his spine. Faith's hands are rougher than Buffy's, unaccustomed to things like moisturizer and bathroom products. Her hands are hunter's hands, more accustomed to gripping a stake or wielding a blade than to gentility.

She strokes him surely and firmly, not bothering to be gentle. She grips his cock with almost bruising force, and it's been so long since he's been with a strong woman (_with Darla_) that he allows himself to hiss in pleasure as he lightly thrusts into her hand. She smirks at him and fishes his large balls out of his pants, palming them too, and the heady mixture of pleasure/pain has his head spinning. In those first, nightmarish weeks out of Hell, Angel hadn't even allowed himself to masturbate, so terrified of inadvertently losing his soul, and he refuses now to think of anything but the pleasure.

"Damn, big boy," she says, drawing him out of his thoughts. "Guess I know what B went for now." She indicates the prodigious length of his cock. When her words sink in, Angel sees red. He feels his vampire face emerge as if symbolic of his rage and he grabs a handful of her dark hair and hauls her to her feet. She yells in angered pain, but he holds her like a mother cat with a naughty kitten and shakes her roughly.

"Buffy is _not_ a part of this!" he hisses. And it's true – this, this _thing_ that he's allowing is something he can only find with Faith; the darkness they both taste at the edges of their minds and the resulting guilt is something that Buffy will never understand, she who is nothing but light and goodness...too good for him. He won't sully her by letting her be drawn into this so very very wrong thing. "You don't talk about her, Faith. Not _ever_." He growls like a lion, deep in his chest, and shakes her for emphasis, and there's a gratifying flash of real fear in her eyes before she hides it from him.

"Fine," she hisses, and he lets her go. She shakes her hair back from his face, and smirks when she sees that he is still hard as a rock. But this is not about being gentle, Angel thinks, and he will maintain control of this – they both need that.

"Strip for me, now," he orders coldly. She doesn't bother with teasing. She rips her tank top off, and then a cheap sports bra follows. Faith's breasts are larger and fuller than Buffy's, with dark nipples. He tugs his shirt off of his head and that small, hateful, narcissistic part of him _loves_ how her eyes rove over his form, acknowledging his beauty. He finishes removing his pants as she removes hers, and now that the cloth is gone he can smell how wet she is between her legs. Later. He'll deal with that later.

Instead, he stretches out and puts himself on display and can't help but moan when she goes down on her knees like she is worshiping him and wraps her strong, experienced lips around his thick cock and begins sucking hard. When her dark eyes glance up at him, he can't stop the hateful memories rising within him. His beauty is all that he has some days, something to cling to. But there's only one person alive now who knows how important that is – the one person that Angel will never, _never_ allow himself to be alone with again.

_**Sunnydale, California, 1998**_

Xander is already waiting for him, like the good little bitch that he is, when Angelus returns to the mansion. He is high from the hunt, and the thought of his good little boy waiting for him only adds to the spice. Spike and Drusilla are still gone, which is good, Angelus thinks absently; Spike has been withdrawn and annoying since his return, and his attachment to Drusilla had become even more sickly and pathetically human since Angelus' absence. Even showing him how fickle Dru was had only served to enrage Spike further, and Angelus was close to simply fucking the disobedient vampire back into submission.

When he opens the door to his bedroom, however, all thoughts of Spike fly from his mind. Alexander Harris is naked, sitting on the bed and staring at nothing, but he starts and immediately climbs to his hands and knees, presenting his delicious ass to Angelus' ravaging gaze. The vampire is almost affectionate as he spanks the boy's warm rump jovially before taking off his coat and heading to the chest in his closet that holds all of his boy's favorite toys.

Angelus had always known that the Harris brat was attracted to him, and afraid of that attraction. He'd put the thoughts of it in the back of his mind, because he was far more focused on Buffy, but when the boy had been so brave and fearful all at once that night in the hospital, Angelus' interest had been piqued – Xander had been hard through that entire encounter, though terror was leaking from his pores like perfume. The way that he had submissively dropped his dark, puppy-dog eyes had only been icing on the cake, and Angelus had felt that a distraction might be in order before launching his next salvo on the Slayer.

The seduction of Xander had been easier than the vampire had ever dreamed, however. One visit to the boy's house, the threat of death against his parents, and the boy had spent an entire weekend in Angelus' house, being broken in as the vampire's property. With the boy's abusive parents and his desperate need for acceptance, every single sign of affection Angelus sparingly doled out only fed Xander's near-addiction to their encounters. By now, he was an entirely obedient little bitch.

Angelus snaps Xander's collar firmly into place, and tightens it just enough for it be uncomfortable. He doesn't use the ball gag anymore; Xander is incredibly vocal about the pain and pleasure he receives, and his cute little screams only inflame his master. Angelus wraps a leather harness around Xander's cock – a cage for his balls that separates them from each other, a firm strap around the base to prevent orgasm, and some metal studs for discomfort on his sensitive skin that Angelus knows Xander enjoys. His boy looks so pretty in leather. And who had known that Xander had been hiding such a lovely body beneath his clothing?

Angelus stays fully clothed. There is ritual here, and he doesn't want to disturb it. He smacks Xander's ass, hard, once more before going to the chair next to the fireplace and sitting down. Xander instantly gets up and pours him some scotch, which Angelus swigs down. He genially indicates his lap, and Xander sits down. Angelus savors the feeling; Xander is just _hotter_, temperature-wise, than almost any human that Angelus has ever encountered, and even the outside of his skin is lovely hot against his cool vampiric flesh.

"What have you done wrong this week, pretty boy?" Angelus asks, tightening his hold around Xander's waist so that Xander stays anchored to their session. It thrills him how Xander's eyes will not meet his, full of shame and secret tears. There is always a light, seductive scent of humiliation carried in Xander's scent during their time together – as much as Xander hates him, and Angelus is sure that on some levels the young mortal certainly does, his boy needs this on a level so deep it terrifies him.

"I...I cheated on a test in English," Xander begins lamely. Angelus scoffs, and Xander quickly gets on to the real bulk. "I helped the others hunt down vampires again," he finally admits. But Angelus senses that there is more. His boy is hiding something from him, and that is not allowed.

"And?" he presses, warningly pressing down on a sensitive spot over the boy's kidneys that has Xander squirming. Angelus' cock begins to rise.

"I...I..." Xander will not look at him. Angelus cocks an eyebrow. Perhaps this is enough to really hurt the boy. He smirks at the thought. He growls impatiently, which is all it takes for his obedient boy to confess. "I jerked off this week." Angelus froze. That is one of their rules. Xander does not take his own pleasure, he waits for Angelus. "I'm so sorry, master, I'm so sorry, I was dreaming about you and then I just started touching myself and—"

"Xander, be quiet," Angelus orders forcefully, and the boy, trembling, stops babbling. The vampire is surprised to find that he is almost tempted to forgive the boy, considering that he had been dreaming of Angelus at the time, but that is no excuse for breaking the rules. He won't go soft on his pretty pet. But the fact that he'd even contemplated such softness means that he is losing his edge over mastering the mortal, which means that soon Xander will either have to die or be turned. "You will kneel on the bed and present yourself to me for punishment. You know what you did wrong."

Trembling, Xander quickly complies to Angelus' orders. Angelus stalks to the wardrobe and reaches down into the box once more, smirking when he comes out with his prizes. The first is a large black butt plug, which he liberally coats with lube. Xander has already prepared himself; Angelus can smell it, so he didn't bother with prepping him before he begins to force the proud black shape up Xander's lovely little hole. Xander keens and moans and thrusts his naughty hips back toward the pressure, and Angelus allows himself to lightly kiss one of Xander's pretty ass cheeks before he finishes shoving the thing inside. He angles it until Xander gasps and groans, his cock hard in its cage, and Angelus knows that it is firmly positioned on the boy's sweet spot, torturing him with his inability to achieve orgasm.

He allows a few moments of silence in the room, broken by nothing but Xander's animalistic panting and moaning, before he raises the whip high and brings it down with a wickedly lovely _CRACK_ across the pristine, gold-kissed skin of his boy's sweet back. Xander yelps and keens like a puppy, and Angelus has to move to take in the look in the boy's puppy-dog eyes as he lowers his head in humiliation at his body's arousal to the pain.

Angelus loves how his boy's spirit is shattering and allowing itself to be remolded into nothing more but the vampire's pet. He rethinks his earlier assessment; Xander Harris has potential to be kept around for a while yet. He raises the whip again and brings it down with another loud _CRACK_, and he loves how Xander's body flinches _into_ the leather kiss of the whip. Angelus gives him eighteen more lashes, breaking the skin on Xander's back and raising the excitement in the room when the scent of blood parades in the air – ten for his misbehavior, and ten for making Angelus press for a confession. By the time he is done, Xander is a quivering, sweaty mess, crying his apologies and his pleasure into Angelus' sheets.

Angelus uses his tongue to clean the wounds on Xander's back, moaning uncontrollably as his vampire face comes to the fore – Xander has such lovely, spicy, delicious blood, all innocence and sin, and Angelus loves the tastes he allows himself. Still, he wills his face back to his human guise, and steps back to admire his handiwork.

"Do you understand what you did wrong?" he asks, and Xander nods miserably.

"Yes, master," the boy says, knowing how Angelus wants to hear him speak.

"Do you want to make it up to me?" the vampire offers.

"Oh, yes, please," Xander whimpers, looking up at the vampire hopefully.

"Then speak to me while you pleasure me, and I'll think about finishing you off when I'm done," Angelus says, and stands perfectly still as Xander stands up, moving hesitantly and hissing in pain/pleasure as the plug brushes against his sweet spot with every move. The boy's cock is an angry, fiery red, and Angelus fights down a chuckle at the sight of his sweet slut, loving every minute of it.

"You're so beautiful, Angel," Xander whispers, completing the ritual. He stares at the vampire with adoration and idolatrous thoughts, the way they all do, and Angelus stretches happily, his vanity singing with pleasure at the way Xander looks at him, peppering his face with sweet, hot, mortal kisses. Angelus captures the boy's hot lips in a torrid kiss, and Xander moans as his mouth is forcefully plundered by Angelus' thick tongue. Still, the vampire's body remains still.

Xander's hot mouth trails down over his chin, whispering praise and adulation as he worships at the altar of the vampire Angelus, removing his shirt and laving his chest, his nipples, with his hot tongue. When Xander removes the vampire's pants, Angelus steps out of them, gloriously naked, and he enjoys Xander sucking him extravagantly. His boy is quiet and obedient, allowing Angelus to fuck his face until he chokes and gags, making Angelus' cock nice and wet with his saliva.

"Would you like me to fuck you, Xander?"

"Yes," Xander chokes out, his face flushed and humiliated.

"Then beg for it," Angelus orders him. "Beg for me, show me how much you want me, you greedy little whore."

"God, Angel, please, take me, own me, master, please..." Xander is almost weeping at the sheer shame of abasing himself before Angelus' ego, but still he praises the vampire's beauty as he kisses Angelus' feet, his legs, his balls, until Angelus finally relents and grabs Xander by the throat. He casually cuts the mortal's air supply off, until Xander stops struggling and goes limp. He releases the boy, and Xander chokes for air, but still he remains still and obedient, accepting the fact that even the very air that he breathes comes from Angelus.

"You're such a good boy," Angelus praises. "Now, on your hands and knees like the shameless slut you are, and take out daddy's toy so that I can fuck you the way you need to be."

Xander obeys.

_**Sunnydale, California, 1999**_

Faith is stretched out shamelessly, her beautiful body writhing on his silk sheets as Angel uses his tongue to taste the inner folds of her sweet cunt. She's looser than Buffy, but her experience isn't a detriment as she painfully clutches his hair and forces his face deeper into the shadowed mystery between her legs. The way she manhandles him reminds him of Darla, and he moans and buries his tongue deeper, using his nose to tickle her clitoris expertly until she is cumming around him, drenching his mouth and teasing him with the taste of her, all dark mystery and anger and pain.

She wants to ride him, but he will not relinquish control. Instead, he fucks her as a man would fuck his wife, and the perversity of Faith the Slayer in his bed while Buffy patrols the cemeteries secure in the knowledge of his commitment to fighting for the forces of light makes his balls clench painfully as he slams into Faith as hard as he can, making them both yell in pleasure.

She rakes her nails down his back hard enough to draw blood, demanding that his demonic face come to the fore, and he does not fight it. He wants the slight revulsion in her eyes as she fucks him, responding to his forceful thrusts with thrusts of her own until his large sac is making wet slapping noises against her ass. Drusilla and Xander swirl in his mind as Faith's dark eyes close, and he knows that if he thinks of Xander he will lose his erection. He wants to fuck his way to thoughtlessness tonight, and he does not think of anything but the way that Faith's inner muscles clench him relentlessly and how wet and hot she is around him as she spanks his clenching ass muscles, driving him on as she reaches another orgasmic peak.

He topples down with her, yelling furiously as her cunt milks his aching cock of his dead seed, spraying his scent deep within her. He rolls off of her after it is done, and they stay side by side, the sweat sticking them to the sheets. As she catches her breath, he thinks of the morning he nearly committed suicide until something or someone sent the magic snowfall to stop him. Walking hand in hand with Buffy, he'd thought that somehow his redemption was more than a dream, but now it seems as unattainable as ever.

"Thanks for the ride," Faith says after a while. She sits up.

"Was it what you needed?" Angel asks softly. He cannot look at her. In another life, another town, another world where Buffy Summers did not exist, this fierce warrior woman would be his match and more, but here they are grudge fucking, or maybe sympathy fucking. He isn't sure. He isn't sure he wants to know the answer to his question.

"Was it for you?" she asks, and there's almost weakness in her voice for once, for once.

"No," he says finally, because there is nothing else to say.

"Got your answer, Fang," she says. But she leans in and kisses him on the cheek almost sweetly. "Good night."

"Good night, Faith," he says softly, whispering her name like a benediction and a curse all at once. She doesn't answer. He lays in bed for a while longer, hearing her gather up her clothes and leaving. She will not be back. She lost herself for a time, but Faith has the same problem that he has – there's nowhere to be lost that the demons of the past will not find you.

After the clock strikes two in the morning, Angel finally gets up and goes to the kitchen. He wants to heat up the blood he drinks, but that would be almost like praise for what he has done tonight, so instead he drinks it cold and winces at the disgusting taste of animal blood long since gone cold and dead. He has to get out of this house, at least until her scent fades from his bedroom. So he goes to the living room and slips his wrinkled clothes back on. He arms himself, hoping against hope that he will find some force of evil, some demon or fledgling vampire that he can stop and congratulate himself with, but the Hellmouth has been quiet since the emergence of the Mayor.

He walks for a long time beneath the warm skies of California waking up to spring. Soon the school year will be over, and Buffy will have an enormous choice to make. There was so much weight on her shoulders. He had thought that he could bear some of that weight with her, but now he knows that while she carries the weight of the world, he carries the weight of the universe, and he cannot share that with anyone, no matter how he wants to.

Angel is not surprised when his feet take him outside of Xander's house. He can smell the small amount of blood he had been expecting. Xander has been cutting himself – small cuts, near-harmless, with a knife he stole from Angel when he thought that Angel had not been looking. Xander hates him more than ever, or perhaps loves him more than any living creature. Angel doesn't know. He could go into that house now and stop him, reassert his mastery: Xander would accept him, he knows that. But he cannot bring himself to. Xander will have to find his own way. Free will. That's what he was fighting for, wasn't it?

Angel could save Xander. But if he saved Xander, he would not be able to save himself. And he is more selfish than he wants Buffy to know. So he leaves his boy to his own devices and continues back toward the mansion, which should now be as cold and lifeless as a crypt, which is what he craves. He will have to go to sleep soon, to hide from the sun's rays. And then he will have to tell Buffy that he is leaving her, because the longer that he stays here, trying to be the hero that she imagines him to be, the more lost he becomes.

And in the end, as sleep comes for him, Angel is alone once more.

_And the Moon gives me permission and I enter through Her eyes_

_She's losing Her virginity and all Her will to compromise_

_I didn't want to hurt you, baby_

_I didn't want to hurt you_

_I didn't want to hurt you but you're pretty when you cry_

_I didn't want to fuck you, baby_

_I didn't want to fuck you_

_I didn't want to fuck you but you're pretty when you're mine..._

—From "Pretty When You Cry" by VAST (_Visual Audio Sensory Theater_)

**A/N:** Wow, I'm starting to worry about myself! I apparently needed to get this off my chest. Hopefully this will finish reawakening my muse so that I can continue with my other ongoing fiction efforts. I hope that you enjoyed the story, at least! In any case, I'm going to go ahead and go – and yeah, this is definitely a oneshot; I don't want to return to this unless I'm depressed and/or murderous, because that's where this one ended up...

**Feedback is highly appreciated!**


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